The Saint Of Baghdad

by Michael Woodman

  CJ nodded. He should have guessed.

  “So what did you expect to find on it?”

  “If I knew that—why would I look for it? My brother said it before he died, according to you. I searched for Cat and Canary online, and that film was one of the few meaningful hits I got.”

  It was hardly an answer. But it was all he was going to get and he knew it.

  “Sneaky bitch.” He said it softly, more like a private musing than a personal insult.

  She smiled like there was a buried compliment in there somewhere, but she didn’t look up. “Don’t knock it. If the sneaky bitch hadn’t been around yesterday, you’d still be stuck in McDonald’s. And I can help you tomorrow too.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve got a contract in Paris. It was a last-minute thing and I couldn’t get a flight, so I’m booked on the Eurostar. I leave in the morning. Why don’t you come with me? We could amend the booking at the station. It’s safer than the airport, and we could fly to California from Paris.”

  “If there’s an arrest warrant for me, there’ll be a Red Alert. It’ll be all over Europe. Paris, London. Ports, stations, airports. It won’t matter.”

  “You think there will be?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. Maybe never. These guys want me out of the way. That could mean dead. In a straitjacket. Hiding out in South America. They’d all work.”

  “I take it you already have a passport and a US visa waiver?”

  “I don’t need a visa waiver. I’m going to turn up at the Mexican border and fill in the forms there.”

  “You’re booked already?”

  “I’m heading to Schiphol. Early a.m. I get a connecting flight from there to Mexico City.”

  “Now who’s the sneaky one.” She stood up. “So that’s it?”

  “For us?” He shook his head. “I’ll get a phone in the US and we’ll fix up some way to keep in touch. And when you’re in Paris, keep working on the phone data.”

  “I’m going to take a long bath,” she said. “You better get some rest.”

  CJ stretched out on the couch as she disappeared down the hallway. He closed his eyes and was soon asleep. When he opened them, it was almost dark outside, and inside too with a single lamp angled over Enya’s laptop. She was typing in spurts, muttering, her running commentary spliced with encouragement, admonishment and abuse.

  Try that… no… idiot… that’s better… what about?

  He listened to her banter, smiling. He was lying on his side on the sofa, his head pointing directly at the table where she was working. She was facing him, wearing a burgundy silk kimono, her upper body and face partly hidden. He was looking straight ahead, watching her legs under the table. They were tracking her voiceover, her knees scissoring back and forth to record every triumph, her pale skin flashing white, ghostly against the dark cloth swishing in and around her thighs.

  He closed his eyes.

  He had never asked God. He didn’t deserve it. He’d been told as much since he was a boy. Even during his years of captivity, pain, and torment. He’d never begged for salvation. He’d looked for something else. Something flowing inside him. Something bound up so tight to life that it was inseparable. He reached inside and touched it and made a wish. Then he was down by the river with Doctor Sam’s voice frothing in his ears, seducing the entrails of his senses, tricking him into feeling once again.

  His eyes opened.

  Enya was looking down on him, her hand drawing its fingers across his cheek. He could feel her touch as her nails snagged each hair of his stubble. He took her hand and kissed her fingers. She watched as he separated each finger and kissed it, each touch a high-voltage jolt pulsing through him. She dropped the kimono to the floor and stood motionless while he studied her body. He reached up and she slid between his arms and unbuttoned his shirt and belt. When he was naked, she lowered herself onto him and they made love like that on the sofa.

  In the bedroom later, she lit scented candles and they played with each other and poked fun at each other. They laughed and drank coffee. Then he took her again. Suddenly. A wall of uncertainty casting its cold shadow. How long had he got? The numbness would be back. Or some Tratfors hit man would get lucky. He had to love her like this was the last time. No salutary gestures. No perfunctory moves. A single loving to fill those years of empty nights and seize an endless future of joy that might never come to pass. He had to squeeze all that into now and play it out on the physical and emotional bridge between them.

  It was still dark when Enya drove him to the airport. They were late. But the early a.m. traffic was light and they made up enough time to pull over by a dumpster and get rid of Masterson’s phone. CJ turned it on to check for messages one last time.

  “Did it work?” Enya said.

  CJ shook his head as he read Kowalski’s reply.

  Hi, CJ, I hear you’re on the way. Great. We’ve got plenty to catch up on. Sean.

  “Damn,” she said. “What do you think?”

  CJ shrugged.

  “I mean about the trip. They’ll be waiting. We need to rethink this.”

  “What about justice? Turning them into paupers. Wives dumping them. Kids shunned on Facebook. What about all that?”

  “That was yesterday. Today is something else. We’re something else.”

  He turned off the phone and tossed it in the trash. He pulled her close and kissed her.

  “Enjoy Paris. We’ll talk when I’m in LA.”

  LOS ANGELES

  Thirteen

  So this was California…

  CJ surveyed the storied landscape. Not a grapevine in sight. As for flowers, there were a few. They were decorating the posters advertising two margaritas for the price of one and brightening up the graffiti on the construction barriers.

  Hills like soft breasts, anyone?

  Dream on.

  He was at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, where twenty thousand people a day legged it over the border, and even on its best day, it was going to have a tough job living up to John Steinbeck’s mellifluous prose. Besides, this day was far from its best. It was hot with no wind, and pollution lounged undisturbed, nestling comfortably on sidewalks and bridges. It was not CJ’s best day either. He’d had a big night in Tijuana, and the aftertaste of tequila was dragging at his feet as he walked ever onward, his recently acquired baseball cap slung low. At least the entry had gone smoothly. He’d slipped a photo of him and Alex into his passport, a snapshot from the Iraq War. Both of them were in full battle gear. It slipped out of his passport as the granny-type border agent processed him, and she took a long look at it as CJ filled in the blanks, calling Alex a hero and telling her about his plans to visit his family to let them know how he died. She’d eyeballed the photo, shaking her head, almost tearing up. It went so well, he thought they might offer him a limo ride. But instead he got a bucketload of thanks and sound advice about how to take care of himself in the US.

  Safely through, he ducked the taxis and ended up at the San Ysidro Transit Station standing at a ticket machine, the still center of a map of bodies on the move, everyone knowing exactly where to go and how to get there. All except CJ, his face inches from the ticket machine, his arm floating around above his head to block the sun as he read the instructions. When he finally got his ticket, he rode the tram to downtown San Diego, where he took a cab to the vacation rental in Santa Monica that Enya had fixed up, skimming a drive-thru en route to pick up a bean burrito, some beef tacos and a large black coffee.

  CJ was all eyes as the driver slowed down to check the building numbers. Trees, lawns, and low-rise apartment buildings, all done in pastel tones lit by the orange light of the winter sun.

  He picked up the key from the designated neighbor and let himself in. The apartment was on the second floor of a two-story building. It was small but comfy, its closets packed with a woman’s clothes and its drawers stuffed with her boots and shoes. According to Enya, the owner was traveling in Asia and subsidizing
her trip by renting out her home.

  He was in the kitchen, cataloging the food supply she’d left in the fridge, when a phone rang in the lounge. He ignored it, but it rang again, so he picked it up. It was Enya calling from Paris. After catching up, they talked about the Santa Monica apartment, which Enya had stayed in a year earlier.

  “It’s only a couple of blocks from the sea,” she said. “There’s a huge beach and a clifftop park. A pier. And Venice Beach is just down the road. They’ve got a boardwalk with street acts. I saw a guy juggling chainsaws there. That’d be right up your street.”

  “What about the phone data you downloaded?”

  “Nothing going back that far. Just the incriminating messages you already found.”

  “No Rumbleby?”

  “Zero hits.”

  “So nothing useful.”

  “For what it’s worth, Masterson and Kowalski are both golf fanatics. They’ve got some sort of bet going on handicaps. Whatever that means.”

  “Where does Kowalski play?”

  “He was crowing about getting a membership to some fancy country club.”

  That was a good hit. The perfect place to catch him with his guard down.

  “Send the address,” he said.

  “Hold on. I’ve got another call. That’s weird. It’s the concierge at my Richmond place. I’ll call you back.”

  And she was gone.

  CJ continued to explore the apartment before zapping his coffee and tacos in the microwave and stashing his bean burrito in the fridge. He’d finished eating and was watching CNN News when Enya rang back.

  “The police raided my flat.”

  “Looking for me?”

  “Have you ever heard of the 1897 Police Property Act?”

  “No.”

  “Well my lawyer has, and he’s just told me—”

  “What happened?”

  “They took my computers. The entire rack. They were IT cops with screwdrivers and a warrant. There’s just a bunch of cables in there now, according to the concierge.”

  CJ said nothing.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “Are you calling me on your mobile?”

  “Damn. I’ll get another phone.”

  “This is a landline. Even if they’re not monitoring your calls, they’ll be able to track the location from your phone record.”

  “How was I supposed to see this coming?”

  It was a good point. But CJ wasn’t into blame games anyway. The issue on his mind was the why behind the raid.

  “Is there an arrest warrant for you?” he said.

  “Me? There’s not even one for you so far as I know. They didn’t even mention you.”

  “You can’t go back there.”

  “I have to. I live there. I’ll get a new phone and post the new contact details and the address of that country club in the secure mailbox we agreed on. Then you can buy a burner cell and we can talk encrypted.”

  They signed off and CJ went outside. The apartment came with a car. A VW Golf. It was tucked in the shade down a ramp under the building. He left it there and strolled down to the shopping area around Main Street, where he meandered in and out of stores and gawked at Californians like a bona fide tourist. He bought two phones, some clothes, and a flashy multitool. He stopped off in a coffee shop with Wi-Fi and ate a sandwich while he unpacked one of the phones and set it up. He installed the encrypted app and he logged in to the secure mailbox to download the country club address. Enya had already purchased a new phone too, so he noted the details.

  Chores done, he stuffed his new belongings into a bag, slung it over his shoulder and walked down to Ocean Avenue. The day was winding down and the clifftop park was buzzing between work and no work. Walkers, joggers, skaters. California’s fitness interlude was playing out, with CJ Brink its idle spectator. He stood at the rail, looking down at the beach, and at the sun as it melted into the Pacific in a splotch of flaming colors.

  He called Enya. Encrypted, safe.

  “Any idea what they’re looking for on those computers?” He wasn’t expecting the truth. But it was worth a try. They were lovers now. That meant something. To him at least.

  “Just our business. Technical stuff. And it’s encrypted.”

  She was still hiding something. She didn’t trust him. But the computers weren’t the only issue. Their new status as lovers had other implications.

  “Someone tried to kill me in the hospital and make it look like an accident. Then someone set me up for murder. Most probably the same someone. And that failed too. So I’m a target and you’re my lover. That makes you a target too. That’s one issue. And the second issue is jail. If you go back to the UK, the police will ask you for the passwords of those computers, and if you refuse, they’ll get a court order. And if you refuse that, you’ll go to jail until you change your mind. So why don’t you skip London and fly from Paris to LA? I’ll pick you up at the—”

  “I’ll message the ETA.”

  They closed out the call, and CJ waited for the sun to finish its business with the Pacific before walking back to the apartment through streets busy with hurry-home traffic.

  The apartment was just as he’d left it. No issues. He booted up his laptop and set up a VPN session to ensure both his anonymity and his privacy. He opened a private browsing window and spent some time studying the country club site before moving on to the surrounding area with Google as his tour guide. It took him hours, flipping between satellite images and maps before drilling down on the detail in street view. The Sierra Mar Country Club was spread over rocky hills with views out over the ocean. Its entrance was at the end of a road bordered by the kind of houses you might expect in a neighborhood where a club membership cost several times the average US house price. The guard booth was on a center isle with a barrier gate for incoming traffic. The parking lot entrance was located behind the guard booth, so you had to pass through the barrier before you could make the turn to enter it. But the parking lot exit was before the guard post, so you could drive out without passing the guard booth a second time, although there was a driver-activated barrier to stop anyone from entering that way.

  CJ studied all this, edging the street view avatar as close as he could to the guardhouse and the gates. The parking lot had to be the place. But there was no way to drive into it unless you were a club member or on a list of invitees, and no way to walk in off the road without being seen by the armed guard in the booth. So he turned his attention to the houses on the street that ran parallel with the parking lot, walking his avatar down the road checking each house. They all had neat lawns, no fences, and well-tended gardens. They all had discreet signs too. There were different names and logos on the signs, but always the same message. Armed response. Yes. These were people with something in common. They all had stuff worth protecting and neighbors who might make a call if they saw a strange Englishman wandering around the place.

  Hours later, he had a shortlist. Three houses where the layout favored success. He was looking for a combination of factors—a lack of threatening signs, cameras that were nonexistent, poorly located, or fake-looking, and easy access to a backyard with plenty of trees to sneak around in. Satisfied with his plan, he stretched out on the sofa and ran it through his head over and over, visualizing the parking lot, the streets, the houses and running different scenarios late into the night, until he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  Fourteen

  CJ woke early and walked to downtown Santa Monica, where he picked up some breakfast and found a mailbox center about to open. He bought packing materials and address labels, then headed back to the apartment, taking the long route via the clifftop park.

  According to Enya, Kowalski had become a creature of habit, a sign that he was getting soft. Once upon a time, he’d been a US Army Ranger with a skill set fine-tuned for survival in conflict zones, where the cardinal rule was change your routine and stay alive. But that was there and then, and this was here and now. Sunny Cal
ifornia. It was his home turf. And Sean Kowalski felt comfortable enough to run his life in well-worn grooves, one of which would deliver him at the Sierra Mar Country Club at ten thirty.

  CJ put together some fake packages and made the trip with forty-five minutes to spare. He drove his VW along the now-familiar streets neither suspiciously slowly nor oddly fast. He was counting on the fact that in today’s gig economy, the sight of a man in no special uniform driving no special vehicle turning up at the door of a house with a package was commonplace.

  Reaching the first of his handpicked houses, he cruised on by. It was a blowout. Two cars in the driveway. The second was interesting. A prospect. He pulled up past the empty driveway, consulted his phone for the benefit of any nosy neighbors, then walked the package up to the front door. It had an old-fashioned peephole. No fancy technology. No hidden camera. No magic doorbell taking a mugshot and sending it to the homeowner. He rang the doorbell and smiled for the peephole as he held up the package. But the fictitious Holly Johnson wasn’t at home. He waited, casually checking the street. Not much to see. It was all but invisible behind overgrown bushes. He left the box on the porch, slipped around the back and peeked through a window. The furniture was covered. The house was empty. Maybe it was for sale. The backyard had a footpath snaking around trees and shrubs that were losing the fight against an overgrowth of weeds. This was even better than he’d hoped—as close to a jungle as it gets in Southern California.

  He made his way through the garden to the parking lot. No wall. Just a chain-link fence about six feet high. He peered through its green links. There were four rows of parking spots, but only two of them were shaded by awnings. The two center rows were open to the sun, except where they were shaded by trees that were scattered throughout the lot. CJ scrambled over the fence and walked along a line of parked cars before dodging behind an oak tree at the corner furthest away from the entrance.